Tag: Elon Musk

Elon Musk Interviewed by Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan: Full Verbatim Transcript (SpaceX IPO, Starlink & Multi-Planetary Future)

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

June 5, 2026 — Elon Musk made a virtual appearance at a special JPMorgan investor event hosted by CEO Jamie Dimon at the bank’s global headquarters in New York as part of the SpaceX IPO Roadshow. Elon joined live (remotely) to discuss SpaceX’s upcoming IPO, the massive capital-intensive growth phase ahead, Starlink V3 and beyond, space-based AI data centers, harnessing “star power” for energy, the Moon-to-Mars roadmap, Starship reusability, Terafab chip ambitions, AI strategy with Grok, and building strong teams/culture. It was a wide-ranging, optimistic conversation about why now is the right time for SpaceX to go public and help make humanity multi-planetary.

Here is my full verbatim transcript (carefully stitched from the YouTube video with captions enabled, cross-checked against available sources including Singju Post for maximum accuracy and cleaned for readability while preserving natural speech patterns, repetitions, and tone):

Welcome and Maye Musk Introduction

Host: Elon, welcome to JP Morgan’s headquarters. You’re on the 51st floor, which is about the equivalent of nowhere near where you go generally in space, but as high as we can get in New York City. But before we get started with you and Jamie, we had a very special guest that wanted to welcome you here this afternoon. And so your mother, Maye Musk, is here to welcome you.

Elon Musk: Great.

Host: Maye, please stand up. I don’t think you can see me or everybody here.

Maye Musk: They can see you. Yes, he can. This is your part.

Elon Musk: I actually can’t see my mom, but I can hear her certainly. Okay.

Maye Musk: What I’d like to say is when you were 3 years old and I told people I have a genius son, they would roll their eyes… And then when you said you wanted to start with rockets, then I rolled my eyes. And then you did it. And so this is just a great party here and we’re celebrating.

Elon Musk: Sounds good. Love you so much.

Maye Musk: Love you too.

Host: One proud mama.

Jamie Dimon: So let me, Elon, welcome you. It’s a real privilege to have you here on this momentous occasion. It is new for us, but it’s an important thing — the trajectory of American innovation. We’re here live: 3,500 people, our top individual investors around the world in 100 branches. There are 350 people here, 3,500 around the country. This is a very unique thing, by the way, because Elon has spoken to me about democratizing finance. This is part of it — treating individual investors the same way institutions are treated and hedge funds and all those things. My view is it’s a wonderful thing to do. Elon, very brave by the way because I would never let my mother speak publicly when I was in the room. God knows what she would have said.

Elon Musk: God knows what she would have said. I had no idea she was there actually.

Jamie Dimon: Elon is the Edison of our time. I remember visiting Elon in Tesla like 15 years ago. A whole new way of building cars, vertical integration which had not been anything remote from what our car companies are doing. Now you have SpaceX. I visited the SpaceX factory in California and it’s exceptional to have more than 650 rockets. You told me one today putting satellites in space. You have 9,000, almost 10,000 Starlink satellites up there. Starlink 3 is coming which is a whole new generation which hopefully will replace some of these undersea cables. It’s been an extraordinary 24 years watching Elon grow over time and now making a massive leap into the future. So welcome. Elon, I have 10 questions for you. So I want to make sure I get to each one. Some of them came from folks here. They’re all important, but one just to start is: why SpaceX public now? Because you had choices. You didn’t have to. Why now?

Why Take SpaceX Public Now?

Elon Musk: Yeah. I’ve been asked for many years about taking SpaceX public. So it’s probably been, I don’t know, almost 10 years that people have been suggesting to me that I should take SpaceX public. We’ve been positive cash flow for quite a long time — I think since around 2014-2015 — and we’ve been self-funding. In fact, in our private equity rounds they actually have not been fundraising rounds. They’ve been liquidity rounds for investors and employees because we give everyone at the company stock, and SpaceX has actually bought back stock in most of our sort of funding events.

So what’s different about now is a number of things, but we are embarking on a significant growth phase — like a capital growth phase — where we’re going to put in orbit probably 100,000 satellites, or probably over 100,000 satellites just for communications. And these will be Version 3 and beyond versus Version 2 and Version 1 that are currently in orbit. Version 3 is, depending on how you count it, 10 to 20 times more capable than the Version 2 satellite. And there were three chips that the SpaceX chip design team taped out that are specific to this, that are far beyond state-of-the-art, which means it’s 100 times more bandwidth than the SpaceX Starlink system currently offers and also half the latency because the altitude will be about half.

I think it will actually be the highest bandwidth, lowest latency means of communicating. And the future with AI and robots is actually going to require a lot more bandwidth than we currently use. Because you can imagine what’s the bandwidth of a human? The peak bandwidth of a human is a few hundred bits per second, but bandwidth of a computer can be a trillion bits a second. So the appetite for bandwidth of AI and compute, AI and robots, is going to be enormous.

And then we’re also doing the AI data centers in space, which is another massive capital endeavor. But I think it’ll be the primary means by which AI can be expanded. It’s increasingly difficult to build power plants on the ground. There are very few people who want a power plant in their backyard. So if we wanted to, say, double the electricity usage of the United States, which is on average about 500 gigawatts, we would have to build about twice as many power plants, which I don’t think most communities are super excited about.

But actually, if we go to space, we can go far beyond the electricity generation of Earth. In fact, this is going to sound crazy, but you could actually increase harnessed energy by a factor of a million and still be using much less than a millionth of the Sun’s energy. Current human civilization uses much less than a trillionth of the Sun’s energy output, which is humbling to think about. We’re really a tiny dust mote in a vast darkness, and the Sun is enormous. The Sun is 99.8% of all mass in the solar system, and most of the remaining is Jupiter.

Sometimes people ask me — and I’m maybe going a little wide-ranging in this answer because you just asked me why you’re going public now, and I’m talking about the Sun’s power output. A bit of a long-winded answer. But it is important. Some of these things are important because people sometimes wonder what’s the future of energy generation. And I can say that it is absolutely solar power — or maybe a better word for solar power is star power. It’s the power of a star. And the crazy thing is that if you burnt all mass in the solar system that was not the Sun, the amount of energy produced by the Sun would still round up to 100%. Because the Sun is 99.8% of the mass of the solar system. Even if you teleported two more Jupiters from another solar system and burnt them too, the Sun would round up to 100%. It’s very much the Sun, and you could scale to a million times Earth’s economy in space in terms of harnessed power — which is a good proxy for economic output — and still be much less than a millionth of the Sun’s energy, which is humbling really to think about how tiny we are, and this is just one star among many. So I guess the TL;DR would be: we’re embarking on a massive new growth phase and we need capital for that.

Jamie Dimon: Okay. Number two. Another thing is the revenue — like I also feel pretty good about the revenue projections, but before, revenue was a little unstable, but now I feel like the revenue is much more predictable.

Elon Musk: Yeah.

Jamie Dimon: I always learn listening to you, I guarantee you. So I mean, people hear about multi-planetary species, travel to space — one of the most exciting ideas in human history. Can you explain the bridge that you speak about? I’ve heard you talk about from the Earth to the Moon to Mars.

Moon to Mars Roadmap

Elon Musk: Yeah. So you don’t necessarily have to go through the Moon to get to Mars. I just think that we can build a self-growing city on the Moon faster than we could do so on Mars. And there’s also the potential, if you say you want to scale far beyond what you can do from Earth, that because the Moon has no atmosphere and about 1/6th Earth’s gravity, you can use an electromagnetic accelerator — a rail gun or mass driver. Basically, you don’t need to use rockets to do AI data centers into deep space from the Moon. You can literally just shoot them like a rail gun type of thing. And you can manufacture the solar power and radiators on the Moon from Moon materials. That would allow scaling potentially to beyond a thousand terawatts a year, which is a truly staggering number. Like I think we can do probably somewhere around 1 terawatt per year of AI space compute from Earth, but we can do a thousand terawatts or more from the Moon. And like I said, we can also make a Moon base. And I think it would be pretty cool if you could vacation on the Moon. That would be the most epic vacation. Not everybody wants to go to the Moon, but I think a lot of people do. I think it would be pretty amazing — obviously provided you could do so safely and come back safely and everything — but I think that will be possible in the future. And then Mars is another step beyond that. Mars is a whole planet with gravity much closer to that of Earth. And it has an atmosphere, albeit thin. And if you warm up Mars, you could one day make Mars like Earth — meaning with liquid oceans and life and where you could walk outside without a space suit type of thing. So Mars is, I call it, a fixer-upper of a planet, but it’s got a lot of potential.

Key Takeaways

SpaceX IPO & Massive Growth Phase

  • SpaceX has been cash-flow positive and largely self-funding for years. Prior rounds focused on liquidity for employees and investors.
  • Going public now to fuel a huge capital-intensive expansion: 100,000+ Starlink satellites (V3+), space AI data centers, and multi-planetary infrastructure.

Starlink V3, Bandwidth & AI Future

  • V3 satellites offer dramatically higher capability, bandwidth, and lower latency.
  • Essential for the coming explosion in AI/robot compute demand.

Space Energy (“Star Power”) & Orbital AI Data Centers

  • Terrestrial power plant expansion faces huge social and practical limits.
  • Space-based solar and AI compute offer near-unlimited scaling potential.

Moon-to-Mars Roadmap

  • Moon as a faster path to self-sustaining presence and a launch platform for deep-space assets.
  • Mars as the ultimate long-term home with terraforming potential.

Starship, Chips & Broader Vision

  • Full rapid reusability on Starship is a historic milestone.
  • Vertical integration into advanced chip production (Terafab) to support orbital AI ambitions and reduce U.S. semiconductor vulnerabilities.

Elon’s Standout Quotes

  • “We’re really a tiny dust mote in a vast darkness… The Sun is 99.8% of all mass in the solar system.”
  • “It is absolutely solar power — or maybe a better word for solar power is star power. It’s the power of a star.”
  • “Version 3 is… 10 to 20 times more capable… 100 times more bandwidth.”
  • On the Moon: “I think it would be pretty cool if you could vacation on the Moon. That would be the most epic vacation.”
  • “Mars is a fixer-upper of a planet, but it’s got a lot of potential.”

My Take

I’m always struck by Elon’s generosity with his time and vision, even when it means late nights. The surprise appearance by Maye Musk was such a warm, human highlight — a proud mom moment that perfectly set the tone. This conversation really underscores that SpaceX going public isn’t just about rockets; it’s about scaling AI, energy, and making life multi-planetary. As someone who follows these developments closely from Austin, this one feels like another Elon Musk Master PLAN! Excited to see how the IPO roadshow and Starlink V3 progress unfold!

Elon Musk portant son célèbre t-shirt « Nuke Mars » observe le test de vol intégré réussi de Starship Version 3 (IFT-12) aux côtés des membres de l’équipe SpaceX, dont Jared en contrôle de mission.

Elon Musk : Un visionnaire sous le feu des critiques – Pourquoi les dernières attaques passent à côté de l’essentiel

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

Au cours des deux dernières semaines, certains médias français ont amplifié des récits dépeignant Elon Musk comme vaincu au tribunal contre OpenAI, embourbé dans des enquêtes judiciaires sur X, et « furieux » face aux choix de casting à Hollywood. Ces narratifs le présentent comme erratique ou problématique. Pourtant, un examen plus attentif révèle un schéma d’outrage sélectif contre l’un des bâtisseurs les plus ambitieux de l’humanité, tandis que ses entreprises réalisent des avancées historiques.

Le Procès OpenAI : Une Position Philosophique, Pas une Défaite

Elon a cofondé OpenAI avec une mission claire : une IA sûre et ouverte pour le bénéfice de l’humanité. Il a alerté tôt sur les dérives vers le profit et les systèmes fermés. Bien que la récente décision du jury soit décevante, elle n’efface pas la validité de ses préoccupations, surtout alors qu’OpenAI se précipite vers une IPO à but lucratif avec le soutien massif de Microsoft. Le procès d’Elon a mis en lumière de vraies questions de gouvernance. Elon a déjà annoncé qu’il ferait appel de la décision devant la Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals en Californie. (Les vrais visionnaires défient les intérêts puissants ; l’histoire leur donne souvent raison.)

L’Enquête Française sur X : Liberté d’Expression contre Application Sélective

L’enquête française sur X concernant la modération de contenus, avec menaces de mandats d’arrêt, cible Elon pour avoir ouvert la plateforme à des voix diverses. Elon s’est défendu publiquement contre ce qu’il perçoit comme un acharnement politique.

Les critiques ignorent commodément que, avant Elon Musk, Twitter prenait de l’argent et du soutien gouvernemental de la part des gouvernements en échange de la permission de la censure. En fait, c’était vraiment de la censure sournoise. Des documents internes des Twitter Files montrent que le FBI a versé plus de 3,4 millions de dollars à l’ancien Twitter (entre 2019 et début 2021) pour le temps passé par son équipe Safety, Content & Law Enforcement à traiter les demandes des forces de l’ordre liées à la modération de contenus. Voir les révélations documentées ici.

Elon a délibérément rompu avec ce modèle le jour où il a acquis l’entreprise en octobre 2022. Il a immédiatement mis fin à tous ces arrangements de remboursement gouvernementaux, démantelé les équipes dédiées SCALE de modération qui traitaient les paiements, et éliminé complètement la pratique. X fonctionne désormais avec une dépendance nulle à tout financement gouvernemental lié à la modération de contenus. La plateforme publie des rapports de transparence annuels détaillés montrant exactement comment elle gère les demandes des forces de l’ordre tout en priorisant une transparence maximale et la quête de vérité plutôt que la censure.

Polémiques Culturelles et Titres Outrés

Les rapports sur les critiques d’Elon concernant le casting dans L’Odyssée de Christopher Nolan ont été présentés comme « haineux ». Elon s’oppose depuis longtemps aux quotas DEI forcés qui privilégient l’identité au mérite et à l’intégrité narrative. Questionner les choix artistiques défend l’excellence dans le storytelling. L’indignation des médias français contraste vivement avec les éloges pour les exploits d’ingénierie d’Elon.

La Vraie Histoire : Un Progrès Inarrêtable

Pendant que les critiques de salon se concentrent sur les procès et les tweets, les entreprises d’Elon livrent des résultats :

  • SpaceX prépare une introduction en bourse historique, avec des valorisations vers les trillions et des timelines ambitieuses pour Mars. Des médias français comme Le Monde et Les Echos saluent à juste titre son caractère spectaculaire.
  • Le récent test de vol intégré de Starship Version 3 (IFT-12) a validé des avancées critiques dans l’architecture de propulsion Raptor 3, incluant des variantes à plus forte poussée au niveau de la mer et en version vide, un volume accru des réservoirs de propergol et des systèmes de contrôle de réaction améliorés, tout en démontrant un hot-staging nominal, le déploiement d’un satellite factice en orbite et une rentrée contrôlée de précision avec amerrissage. Ces résultats marquent un progrès décisif vers la réutilisabilité complète et rapide du système de lancement super-lourd de 18 millions de livres de poussée et les capacités de transfert de propergol en orbite nécessaires aux architectures durables lunaires et martiennes. La direction de la NASA et les principaux experts aérospatiaux ont publiquement salué les données de vol itératives et la maturation du système.
  • Tesla continue de renforcer sa position à la fois dans les véhicules électriques et dans le stockage d’énergie à l’échelle du réseau en France. L’entreprise déploie des systèmes de stockage par batterie Megapack à grande échelle, notamment le projet de 240 MW / 480 MWh à Cernay-lès-Reims avec TagEnergy et le projet de 100 MW / 200 MWh à Cheviré près de Nantes. Ces installations exploitent la plateforme de gestion énergétique Autobidder de Tesla pour l’optimisation du réseau en temps réel et la régulation de fréquence. Parallèlement, Tesla a atteint un jalon mondial avec l’activation de son 80 000e stall Supercharger sur une station V4 étendue majeure en France, dotée de canopées solaires et d’une architecture de charge haute puissance.
Elon Musk portant son célèbre t-shirt « Nuke Mars » observe le test de vol intégré réussi de Starship Version 3 (IFT-12) aux côtés des membres de l’équipe SpaceX, dont Jared en contrôle de mission.
Elon Musk portant son célèbre t-shirt « Nuke Mars » observe le test de vol intégré réussi de Starship Version 3 (IFT-12) aux côtés des membres de l’équipe SpaceX, dont Jared en contrôle de mission.

Il emploie des dizaines de milliers de personnes, a payé les impôts les plus élevés de l’histoire des États-Unis — plus de 11 milliards de dollars en une seule année — et SpaceX a effectué 165 lancements en 2025 seulement, acheminant plusieurs équipages de quatre astronautes chacun vers l’ISS via Dragon, tandis que la Chine n’en a envoyé aucun vers l’ISS et que la Russie n’en a acheminé qu’une poignée via Soyuz au cours des 24 derniers mois.

En fin de compte, les récits amplifiés par certains médias français au cours des deux dernières semaines continuent de dépeindre Elon Musk comme erratique ou problématique.

Pourtant, un examen plus attentif révèle un schéma d’outrage sélectif contre l’un des bâtisseurs les plus ambitieux de l’humanité, tandis que ses entreprises réalisent des avancées historiques.

elon musk, starship, ift-12, spacex, mission control, nuke mars, mars colonization, starship v3, rocket launch, elon musk starship, elon musk team, jared spacex, reusable rocket

Elon Musk: Visionary Under Fire – Why the Latest Attacks Miss the Bigger Picture

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

In the past two weeks, certain French outlets have amplified stories portraying Elon Musk as defeated in court against OpenAI, entangled in judicial probes over X, and “enraged” over Hollywood casting choices. These narratives paint him as erratic or problematic.

Yet a closer look reveals a pattern of selective outrage against one of humanity’s most ambitious builders, while his companies achieve historic breakthroughs.

The OpenAI Lawsuit: A Philosophical Stand, Not a Defeat

Elon co-founded OpenAI with a clear mission: safe, open AI for humanity’s benefit. He warned early about profit-driven shifts and closed systems. Although the recent jury decision is disappointing, it does not erase the validity of his concerns, especially as OpenAI races toward a for-profit IPO with massive Microsoft backing. Elon’s suit highlighted real governance questions.

Elon has already announced he will appeal the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California. (True visionaries challenge powerful interests; history often vindicates them.)

French Investigation into X: Free Speech vs. Selective Enforcement

France’s probe into X over content moderation, with threats of warrants, targets Elon for platforming diverse voices. Elon has publicly defended against what he sees as politically motivated overreach.

Critics conveniently ignore that before Elon Musk, Twitter was taking some government money and support from governments in return for allowing censorship. In fact, it really was underhanded censorship. Internal documents from the Twitter Files show the FBI paid pre-Musk Twitter over $3.4 million (between 2019 and early 2021) for staff time processing law-enforcement and content-moderation requests through its Safety, Content & Law Enforcement division. See the documented revelations here.

Elon deliberately broke from this model the day he acquired the company in October 2022. He immediately ended all such government reimbursement arrangements, dismantled the dedicated SCALE moderation teams that had processed the payments, and eliminated the practice entirely. X now operates with zero reliance on any government funding tied to content moderation. The platform publishes detailed annual Transparency Reports showing exactly how it handles law-enforcement requests while prioritizing maximum transparency and truth-seeking over censorship.

Cultural Spats and “Outrage” Headlines

Reports of Elon criticizing casting in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey were framed as “hateful.” Elon has long opposed forced DEI quotas that prioritize identity over merit and storytelling integrity. Questioning artistic choices defends excellence in storytelling.

French media’s pearl-clutching contrasts sharply with praise for Elon’s engineering feats.

The Real Story: Unstoppable Progress

While armchair critics focus on lawsuits and tweets, Elon’s companies deliver:

  • SpaceX is preparing a landmark IPO, with valuations soaring toward trillions and ambitious Mars timelines. French outlets like Le Monde and Les Echos rightly call it spectacular.
  • The recent integrated flight test of Starship Version 3 (IFT-12) has validated critical advancements in the Raptor 3 propulsion architecture including higher-thrust sea-level and vacuum variants, increased propellant tank volume, and improved reaction-control systems while demonstrating nominal hot-staging, orbital dummy-satellite deployment, and a precision controlled re-entry splashdown. These results mark decisive progress toward rapid full reusability of the 18-million-pound-thrust super-heavy lift system and the in-orbit propellant-transfer capabilities required for sustainable lunar and Martian architectures. NASA leadership and leading aerospace experts have publicly commended the iterative flight data and system maturation.
  • Tesla continues to strengthen its position in both electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage in France. The company is deploying large-scale Megapack battery energy storage systems including the 240 MW / 480 MWh project in Cernay-lès-Reims with TagEnergy and the 100 MW / 200 MWh Cheviré project near Nantes. These installations leverage Tesla’s Autobidder energy management platform for real-time grid optimization and frequency regulation. In parallel, Tesla achieved a global milestone with the activation of its 80,000th Supercharger stall at a major expanded V4 station in France featuring solar canopies and high-power charging architecture.
elon musk, starship, ift-12, spacex, mission control, nuke mars, mars colonization, starship v3, rocket launch, elon musk starship, elon musk team, jared spacex, reusable rocket
Elon Musk in his iconic “Nuke Mars” t-shirt watches the successful Starship Version 3 (IFT-12) integrated flight test alongside SpaceX team members including Jared from mission control.

He employs tens of thousands, has paid the highest taxes of anyone in the history of the US — over $11 billion in a single year — and SpaceX has conducted 165 launches in 2025 alone, bringing multiple crews of four astronauts each to the ISS via Dragon, while China has brought up none to the ISS and Russia has brought up only a handful via Soyuz in the past 24 months.

Ultimately, the stories amplified by certain French outlets over the past two weeks continue to portray Elon Musk as erratic or problematic.

Yet a closer look reveals a pattern of selective outrage against one of humanity’s most ambitious builders, while his companies achieve historic breakthroughs.

Gail’s Tesla Podcast Episode 172: Zuby’s First Supervised FSD Ride in Austin – A Conversation That Went Viral (Over 1 Million Views!)

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

May 2026

This one went big.

Episode 172 with the one and only Zuby (@ZubyMusic) has already surpassed 1 million views on X — and for good reason. Fresh off a flight from Dubai, Zuby hopped into my Tesla for his very first supervised FSD (Full Self-Driving) experience in Austin. What started as an in-car chat quickly became one of the most engaging and widely shared conversations we’ve had.

We split it into two parts because the discussion was so rich. Part 1 covers his global perspective, culture shock, and a powerful take on the biggest myth about masculinity. Part 2 dives into free speech, what it was like meeting Elon Musk in the early days after the Twitter acquisition, and why he keeps his rap music “squeaky clean.”

Watch Part 1 here (the viral ride):

Watch Part 2 here (free speech, Elon, and clean rap):

Why This Episode Resonated So Strongly

Zuby brought a truly global lens to the table. Having lived across the UK, Saudi Arabia, and traveled extensively, he shared how different cultures shape our views — and how travel can be the ultimate cure for ignorance and narrow-mindedness.

His first reaction to FSD was priceless: pure amazement at watching the car drive itself while we chatted. “This would have been considered impossible even within our own lifetimes,” he noted. It was a beautiful reminder of how far the technology has come and how it feels to experience it for the first time.

The conversation on masculinity was especially powerful. Zuby challenged the modern narrative that masculinity itself is a problem. Instead, he argued that many issues attributed to “toxic masculinity” actually stem from an absence of healthy, channeled masculinity — and that boys need strong, positive male role models to thrive.

In Part 2, things got even more fascinating as he opened up about meeting Elon Musk shortly after the Twitter acquisition and his philosophy on creating clean, positive rap music in a genre often filled with negativity.

A Conversation That Hit Different

This episode felt special from the start. Zuby’s wisdom, humor, and no-nonsense perspective combined perfectly with the unique setting of cruising Austin streets on FSD. Listeners clearly felt it too — the views exploded, and the comments poured in with people loving the mix of tech wonder and deep life insights.

Whether you’re here for the FSD ride reactions, the cultural wisdom, or Zuby’s refreshing take on masculinity and free speech, this one delivers.

Join the Conversation

Have you watched Episode 172 yet? What stood out to you most — Zuby’s first FSD experience, his thoughts on masculinity, or his stories about meeting Elon?

Drop your thoughts in the comments below. I read every single one!

And if you haven’t subscribed or followed along yet, now’s the perfect time. This is exactly why I love doing these in-car podcasts — real conversations with remarkable people in remarkable settings.

Thank you to everyone who watched, shared, and engaged. Over a million views is wild, and I’m incredibly grateful.

Stay curious. Stay adventurous. And keep riding with us. 🚕✨

Zuby’s links:

  • X: @ZubyMusic
  • Podcast: Real Talk with Zuby

Tags: #Zuby #GailsTeslaPodcast #FSD #Tesla #Austin #Masculinity #FreeSpeech #ViralPodcast #Episode172

Previous: Episodes 170 & 171 – Full Conversation with @TechOperator

Henry Nowak portrait — 18-year-old stabbed to death in Southampton knife crime while walking home. Two-tier policing outrage, Elon Musk X post, George Floyd double standard comparison.

Henry Nowak: The Bright Young Life Snuffed Out by Knife Crime, Institutional Inertia, and a Double Standard That Demands Reckoning

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

In the quiet streets of Southampton on a cold December night in 2025, 18-year-old Henry Nowak did what thousands of university students do after a night out with friends: he walked home, phone in hand, sending Snapchat videos to his mates, still buzzing from football and camaraderie. What happened next was not just a senseless murder. It was a cascade of failures—by an attacker wielding ideology as a shield, by police whose priorities appeared warped by fear of “racism” accusations, and by a broader system that has normalized two-tier justice. Seven months later, as Vickrum Digwa, 23, stands trial for murder at Southampton Crown Court, the world is only now learning Henry’s name. And it is learning it primarily because Elon Musk’s X platform refused to let the story die in obscurity.

This is the story of a young man whose future was stolen, a family shattered, and a nation forced to confront whether some lives matter more than others in the eyes of the law.

This is the story of a young man whose future was stolen, a family shattered, and a nation forced to confront whether some lives matter more than others in the eyes of the law.

A Son, Brother, Teammate, and Role Model Full of Promise

Henry Nowak grew up in Chafford Hundred, Essex, in a close-knit family that watched him thrive. He attended Harris Academy Chafford Hundred, where staff remembered him as a role model to younger students who made a significant contribution and left with an excellent set of A-level results. At the University of Southampton, he was in his first year studying Accountancy and Finance. He played football for two teams—Villarrealgorithm CF and the university side—worked part-time at Morrisons, and was already building new friendships while keeping old ones close.

His family—father Mark Nowak, mother Lucy Ross, siblings, cousins, grandparents, and teammates—described him as “a loving son, brother, cousin, grandson, nephew, friend and teammate… full of life, kindness and ambition.” A charity football match held in his memory raised more than £40,000 for 2Wish, the bereavement support organization that helped the family in their darkest days. Mark later spoke of the “very very big hole” left in their lives, especially as they faced what would have been Henry’s 19th birthday. Memorial walls and memory books at his old school overflowed with tributes from friends and teachers who called him funny, kind, talented, and the sort of lad who lifted the mood the moment he walked into a room.

Henry’s future should have been ordinary and bright: a career in finance, weekends on the pitch, family holidays, perhaps one day coaching his own kids. Instead, it ended in a puddle of blood on Belmont Road.

The Night of December 3, 2025: A Racist Accusation, a Knife, and a Victim Ignored

Henry had been out celebrating the end of the first semester with his university football teammates. He was under the legal drink-drive limit and in good spirits when he began walking home along Belmont Road, sending those Snapchat videos. Court evidence shows the moment his phone captured Vickrum Digwa approaching, openly carrying a 21cm shastar—a large Sikh ceremonial blade—in a sheath over his clothing. Henry, spotting the weapon, jokingly called him a “bad man.” Digwa replied, “I am a bad man.” Moments later, Digwa pursued him and inflicted four stab wounds, including a fatal 8cm-deep puncture to the chest that nicked the subclavian vein and flooded Henry’s chest cavity with over a litre of blood.

When police arrived, Digwa told them Henry had “racially abused” him. Officers handcuffed the bleeding teenager. Bodycam footage played in court captured Henry protesting he had done no such thing, begging for help, saying he couldn’t breathe. They told him they didn’t think he had been stabbed. First aid began only after he collapsed. He choked on his own blood and was pronounced dead 37 minutes later. Digwa denies murder, claiming self-defence and fear over his own kirpan. His mother, Kiran Kaur, denies assisting an offender by allegedly removing the weapon.

The senselessness is staggering. A young man running for his life, stabbed while fleeing, then treated as the aggressor because the real aggressor invoked the ultimate modern taboo: racism. Henry was white; Digwa is Sikh. The accusation flipped victim and perpetrator in the eyes of officers arriving at a chaotic scene. No urgency. No humanity. Just ideological caution that, in this case, proved fatal.

The Police Failure: Why Aid Was Delayed and a Victim Suffered

The officers’ actions were not born of malice but of a culture drilled into UK policing: accusations of racism trigger instant deference, even when the accuser is the one with the knife. Bodycam evidence and trial testimony paint a picture of hesitation rooted in fear of career-ending complaints. Henry begged for help. They prioritized securing the “racist” suspect—him—over treating obvious stab wounds. Months later, as of May 2026, no officers have been named publicly, suspended, or disciplined. An independent investigation by the IOPC is ongoing, but accountability feels glacial.

This is two-tier policing in stark relief: the same forces that arrest thousands for “offensive” social media posts move with glacial slowness when their own decisions contribute to a death.

Elon Musk, X, and the Exposure That Mainstream Media Nearly Buried

None of this would have reached global attention without X. Under Elon Musk’s ownership, the platform became the town square where citizen journalists, eyewitness accounts, and unfiltered video could spread. Musk quoted a detailed thread laying out the horror—Henry running for his life, handcuffed while bleeding out, no urgency from police—and added his own searing analysis: “There were massive international protests over George Floyd and those police involved were severely punished with long prison sentences, yet the police responsible here did not even lose their jobs! An incredibly unjust double-standard!”

Elon’s engagement was and is not performative. He highlighted the core facts: the attacker’s racism claim, the handcuffs, the choking death, the contrast with 12,000+ arrests for tweets. He amplified the pain without exaggeration. In doing so, he forced a conversation that legacy media had sidelined. Without X’s free-speech ethos post-Musk acquisition, Henry’s story might have remained a local court report, buried under other headlines. Musk even offered to fund a wrongful-death lawsuit against the officers.

George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and the Mirror No One Wants to Face

Contrast is unavoidable. George Floyd’s death in May 2020 sparked global protests, riots in U.S. cities, corporate virtue-signaling, and policy upheavals. Officers faced long prison sentences; Derek Chauvin received 22.5 years. “Black Lives Matter” became a worldwide rallying cry, with politicians kneeling in solidarity.

Henry Nowak received none of that. No mass vigils in Trafalgar Square. No world leaders issuing statements. No golden-casket funerals broadcast worldwide. Just silence from the same quarters that once demanded “no justice, no peace.” The double standard is glaring. One death fit a dominant narrative of systemic racism against minorities; the other challenged it—white victim, minority attacker, police prioritizing the racism claim. All lives should matter equally, yet institutional and media responses reveal selective empathy. This is not “whataboutism.” It is a demand for consistency: if police failings demand protests when the victim is Black, they demand the same when the victim is white.

Will This Spark a “White Lives Matter” Movement? Or Something Better?

The question hangs heavy: could Henry’s death birth a “White Lives Matter” movement? Unlikely in the organized, protest-heavy form of BLM. “White Lives Matter” has existed as a fringe counter-slogan, often dismissed or demonized. But something deeper may be stirring. Across Britain and beyond, frustration with two-tier policing—harsher on native citizens’ speech than on migrant crime or ideological favoritism—has been building for years. This case crystallizes it: an innocent 18-year-old died in custody of the state’s hesitation.

Public reaction on X and elsewhere shows raw pain, calls for reform, and demands for color-blind justice. It may not spawn marches in Henry’s name, but it could accelerate a broader reckoning: equal protection under the law, not equal deference to accusations based on race. True progress lies not in mirroring BLM’s excesses but in insisting every life—Henry’s included—receives the same urgency, investigation, and outrage.

A Turning Point in History?

Henry Nowak’s death may prove a quiet pivot. In an era of mass migration, knife crime epidemics, and identity politics overriding evidence, it exposes the human cost of prioritizing narrative over truth. A loving family lost their son just before Christmas. A university lost a promising student. A football pitch lost a teammate. Britain lost another young man to a blade and a system that looked away.

The trial will deliver legal justice for the stabbing. But the deeper questions—police accountability, media silence, institutional bias—remain. Thanks to X and voices like Musk’s, Henry will not be forgotten. His name now echoes globally. His story demands we choose: selective outrage that divides us further, or a commitment that every life, regardless of the victim’s skin color or the attacker’s, matters equally.

Rest in peace, Henry. Your bright future was stolen, but your legacy may yet force the change Britain desperately needs. Justice for Henry Nowak is justice for us all.

Sources

  • AOL: “Student stabbed with 21cm knife, murder trial told” (May 2026)
  • New York Post: “18-year-old student stabbed to death while celebrating end of first semester” (December 2025)
  • AFC Totton: “Over £40,000 Raised In Memory Of Henry Nowak At Charity Football Match” (2026)
  • University of Southampton student union and family statements via multiple reports (2025–2026)
  • Southampton Crown Court trial coverage via ITV News, Sky News affiliates, and independent outlets (May 2026)
  • Elon Musk’s X post quoting the detailed thread on the case (May 2026)
  • Additional family and memorial details from Hampshire Police tribute, SUSU reports, and 2Wish charity updates (2025–2026)
Elon Musk joined the Samson Smart Mobility Summit in Israel remotely at 2:30 AM Austin time. Full verbatim transcript covering FSD, robotaxis, Optimus, Starship, Neuralink, and abundance. Key takeaways + My Take from Austin.

Elon Musk Remote Talk at 2026 Samson Smart Mobility Summit in Israel: Full Verbatim Transcript

Gail Alfar1 Comment

May 18, 2026 — Elon Musk made a surprise remote appearance at the 9th International Samson Smart Mobility Summit in Israel. Despite it being 2:30 AM in Austin, he joined the stage virtually and delivered thoughtful answers on Full Self-Driving, robotaxis, Optimus, Starship, Neuralink, and humanity’s path toward universal high income and abundance.

Here is my full verbatim transcript (carefully stitched from @CBDoge, Sawyer Merritt, and the video itself):

Host (Daniela Geromar-Galiot): We’re absolutely thrilled to have you joining us here today at the 9th International Samson Smart Mobility Summit in Israel, a country that shares your spirit of relentless innovation.

Elon Musk: Thank you for having me. I would be there in person, but we gotta get this SpaceX IPO going pretty soon. So I’m happy to answer any questions you may have or whatever would be interesting.

Host: Perfect. So Tesla has spent years developing the vision and technology for smart mobility. Now that you’re moving from testing, what is the biggest challenge in scaling this technology to millions of users around the world?

Elon Musk: In terms of having self-driving be ubiquitous… I think we’re making steady progress. The Tesla Full Self-Driving software, which is really just AI and cameras, we don’t use radars or LIDAR or anything like that. It’s really trying to drive the car in the same way that a human drives the car, which humans primarily drive the car with vision and with a biological neural net. We take the same approach with our vehicles, which is a digital neural net and cameras. I expect this approach to ultimately be at least an order of magnitude safer than humans driving.

I’m not sure if we have approval for this in Israel. I think we may have, or we will get it soon hopefully and you’ll be able to experience it for yourself.

It is quite magical, because the car feels like it is sentient. It actually feels like it’s alive. And you can actually, as we improve the software, you can feel the sentience growing in the car. It feels alive.

And I think we already have some vehicles operating with no people inside and no safety monitors in three cities in Texas, and probably will be widespread in the U.S. by end of this year, and hopefully in Israel too.

Host: Thank you. We look forward to that.

Elon Musk: The world is going to have a lot of robots in the future, and what Tesla makes is effectively four-wheeled robots right now.

And in the future we’ll also be having humanoid robots. You’re seeing a lot of startups with humanoid robots. My prediction is that there’ll be far more robots, like intelligent robots, in the world than there will be people, and I think this is most likely to be a good thing. We always want to be a little paranoid, or certainly not complacent about the safety of robots, but I think it will usher in an age of not universal basic income, but universal high income.

Host: Right, thank you… And I think we have one of your robots out here in the exhibition, so that’s also a lot of fun for everybody here. Go and take a look.

Elon Musk: Optimus subprime, haha!

Host: Exactly. When you think about, let’s say, the most exciting development or breakthrough that you’re working on right now, what do you think would be the one that people aren’t talking enough about enough?

Elon Musk: Well, I guess people are mostly aware of the rockets that SpaceX does. This Starship rocket, which we are now in version 3 of, will, I think, achieve full and rapid reusability. This is the fundamental breakthrough necessary to make life multi-planetary, to extend consciousness beyond Earth, and have self-sustaining cities, self-growing cities on the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere in the solar system.

This is really quite a profound breakthrough, and we might succeed in doing that this year. The critical factor being full and rapid reuse of all parts of the rocket. That’s a much bigger deal than people would realize. When that technology is developed, that’ll be a fork in the road in human history, where we can become a spacefaring civilization, a multi-planet species, and I think that’s an incredibly exciting thing.

Elon Musk: Perhaps to some degree there is also, not many people are aware of Neuralink, which is creating a cybernetic interface to AI from your brain.

It has enabled people who have completely lost their brain-body connection to speak again and to use their computer and their phone and we believe it will enable people to walk again… because you can take the signals from the brain, from the motor cortex and if somebody has, say, a severe spinal injury, you could transmit those signals to a second neural implant and reanimate the body so that people can use their limbs. We think at some point they can live a normal life by effectively bridging the signal from the brain to past the point in the spine where damage has occurred.

These are pretty wild things that are possible. And then later this year we expect to do our first implant for what we call “blindsight,” where even if somebody has lost both eyes or lost the optic nerve or perhaps has never seen, even if they were blind at birth, it will give them initially limited vision, but I think over time very precise vision, perhaps superhuman.

So restoring control of people who are tetraplegics and restoring sight are pretty big deals. Those sort of Jesus-level technologies, you know… miracles. Yes, exactly. Miracles of science

Host: . Miracles! Yeah. Great, thank you!

Host: I have another question about the automotive world. If I bring it back to smart mobility. When you look past the immediate rollouts of FSD, what does the ultimate endgame for smart mobility look like in 10 or 20 years from now? I mean, what is the grand vision that still keeps you up at night when we talk about mobility?

Elon Musk: Well, at this point the path to cars driving is an order of magnitude safer than humans is very clear, and I think it’s not really a question mark. So I’m not sure if this really keeps me up at night because the path is just so obviously there.

Five years from now, or certainly ten years from now, probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car. It will be quite a niche thing in 10 years to actually be driving your own car, because the car will drive you.

I think there will also be humanoid robots that are pretty much everywhere. And I think it would be pretty cool because who wouldn’t want their own personal C-3PO, R2-D2 — but even better than that! And I think everyone is going to want one, maybe two.

Host: A terminator?

Elon Musk: Well, hopefully not. We should always be concerned about such a thing because yeah, Terminator is one of the possible outcomes. I think it’s an unlikely one, but it’s not impossible. And so we should always be careful to make sure that robots are safe.

This is why I actually think we’re headed to a future of amazing abundance. You can think of the output of the economy as productivity per capita times the population. And if the robots are extremely productive, and there are a lot of them, you’re effectively going to have an economy that will be maybe 10 or even 100 times bigger than what it is today. And that’s why I think it is going to be a future of universal high income, where pretty much anyone can have whatever they want.

There are larger questions of meaning. How do we derive meaning in a world where AI and robots can do anything better than what we can do? Because that is probably where we’re headed. But I think people will still find ways to have meaning.

And sometimes it’s like, what is the future that you want? Or what do you think the future is? What’s the best picture you can possibly imagine? And a lot of people are a little surprised by that question. Because, let’s say you are praying to God and you ask for a given future. Well, what future do you want God to give you?

Probably a future where there is an amazing abundance for all, where everybody has incredible medical care and in fact anything can be cured. No one is hungry. People are free to do what they would like. I think that’s probably the best future.

Host: And peace, peace and love!

Elon Musk: Well yeah. I always worry about it becomes some dystopian version of that, you know. But certainly love — I mean, I think we want a future with that seems like a no-brainer. Peace is an interesting one because sometimes the price for complete peace may be maybe too high, because complete peace may require too much suppression of the people. So perhaps there is peace to some degree but not completely. Ideally there’s not like a large-scale war of course. But you know, you have to think about these questions kind of deeply. Do you want a world where there’s no conflict? But how do you achieve a world where there is no conflict at all without some form of suppression?

So my guess is probably people would want a future with some conflict, not total peace, but nothing… not a serious war perhaps. But these are interesting philosophical questions. What future would you like?

Host: Do you have a message to the Israeli innovators here?

Elon Musk: Honestly, I’m a huge admirer of the innovation coming out of Israel. I think it is objectively true that Israel punches far above its weight for population. I think, probably number one My hat is off to Israel for how much incredible innovation per capita. Israel must be number one by far in the world!

Host: Thank you so much. Before you go, I would like to invite Israel’s Minister of Transport and Road Safety, Brigadier General Miri Regev, to join our conversation…

Minister Miri Regev: Thank you Elon, you are great! We love you! I see that you are tired! it’s wonderful to have you with us even remotely.

Elon Musk: Thank you. It’s about 2:30 in the morning here in Austin, Texas, and thank you for having me! It was a pleasure, thank you! so I’m going to get some sleep, I really appreciate the invitation and looking forward to seeing progress in Israel.

Host & Minister: Thank you Elon! (Audience applause)

Host (wrap-up): That was Elon Musk joining us remotely from Austin…

Key Takeaways

Full Self-Driving & Robotaxis

  • Vision-only FSD (no radar or LIDAR) already feels “sentient” and is running unsupervised in Texas cities. I have taken many unsupervised Model Y Robotaxi here in my city of Austin, Texas.
  • Widespread U.S. robotaxi deployment expected by end of 2026, with Israel to follow soon after.
  • In 10 years, ~90% of all miles driven will be by AI — personally driving your own car will become a niche activity.

Robots & Abundance

  • Far more intelligent robots than humans expected in the future.
  • Tesla’s current cars are “four-wheeled robots”; Optimus humanoid robots are coming next.
  • Shift from Universal Basic Income → Universal High Income as robots drive massive economic growth (10x–100x bigger economy).

Starship & Multi-Planetary Life

  • Starship Version 3 targeting full & rapid reusability this year.
  • Critical step toward self-sustaining cities on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. we are at a “fork in the road in human history.”

Neuralink & Medical Miracles

  • Already restoring speech and device control for patients.
  • Upcoming “blindsight” trials later this year could restore (and eventually enhance) vision.
  • Described as “Jesus-level technologies.”

Praise for Israel

  • Elon called Israel #1 in the world for innovation per capita and said the country “punches far above its weight.”

Elon’s Standout Quotes

  • “It is quite magical, because the car feels like it is sentient. It actually feels like it’s alive.”
  • “We might succeed in doing that this year… That’ll be a fork in the road in human history.”
  • “Innovation per capita, Israel’s must be number one by far in the world.”
  • “10 years from now, probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car.”

My Take

I’m in awe that Elon stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, 2:30 AM his time, to do this interview. I woke up to phone notifications form CB Doge and Sawyer Merritt sharing clips of the interview. Perhaps the biggest treat of the whole thing was a podcast episode that Elon also shared around the same time from Steven Mark Ryan. Please watch it (it is super short) and you’ll get the real picture of all the phenominal things Elon does!

Steven Mark Ryan also shared an edited cleaned up version of this very interview.

If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it. It captures the energy perfectly.

Gail’s Tesla Podcast: Episodes 170 & 171 – Full Conversation with @TechOperator During Supervised FSD Model Y Ride in Austin

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

May 2026

What a treat it was to spend time with the wonderful @TechOperator! I’m thrilled to share our complete conversation across two engaging drives in my Model Y here in Austin. Part 1 dropped as Episode 170 and we continued seamlessly into Part 2 in Episode 171 — it felt so natural and relaxed chatting while the car confidently handled the roads.

The Full Experience

In this inspiring two-part interview, @TechOperator (a passionate Tesla owner, former IT executive, and active voice in the X community) joins me for fast-paced, authentic discussions during real-world FSD rides in my Model Y.

We covered:

  • His inspiring life transition away from corporate life and the overwhelmingly positive support from the X community.
  • Building an authentic presence online.
  • His deep appreciation for Tesla’s performance, handling, acceleration, and how he uses FSD for a significant portion of his driving (~30%).
  • Highlights from his recent Giga Texas visit, including seeing the Cybercab up close (and getting to test a Robotaxi!).

The rides in my Model Y provided the perfect backdrop — smooth, confident, and freeing. It allowed us to have a real, flowing conversation without any stress about driving.

Watch Part 1 (Episode 170):

Watch Part 2 (Episode 171 continuation):

What These Rides Revealed

There’s something truly special about holding a genuine conversation while your own Model Y navigates Austin’s busy streets on FSD. These experiences highlight how far autonomous driving has come and why it feels so capable and natural today.

The car sees the world through its cameras alone — clean, elegant, and remarkably human-like perception without bulky extra sensors. That vision-only approach shines in Austin’s varied conditions: traffic, pedestrians, cyclists, changing light, and all the everyday surprises.

Behind that capability is an enormous amount of real-world learning. Tesla’s fleet has driven billions of miles, training the system on countless variations of the exact scenarios we encountered. You feel that depth in how proactively and smoothly the car handles intersections, merges, and dynamic situations — giving us the freedom to focus entirely on the conversation.

The intelligence comes from end-to-end neural networks that turn raw camera input directly into fluid, context-aware actions. No brittle rule-based layers guessing at every possibility — just holistic, intelligent driving that feels natural and reliable.

None of this scales without massive dedicated compute power turning fleet data into rapid improvements. Purpose-built training infrastructure keeps pushing the models forward at an impressive pace.

It also benefits tremendously from tight vertical integration. Hardware and software evolve together through seamless over-the-air updates on the same platform, delivering consistent, responsive performance that improves ride after ride.

What stands out most is the bold commitment to true FSD operation on public roads — not limited demos, but real confidence in complex city environments. Experiencing that while chatting comfortably turns “someday” into something you can live today in Austin (and soon more places).

And because it’s a living, learning system, every mile driven makes the whole fleet smarter. The Model Y we rode in continues to improve with each update, pulling lessons from millions of other vehicles.

These rides carry that forward-looking “gold Cybercab energy” we felt seeing the purpose-built robotaxis at Giga Texas. They’re the bridge to the exciting autonomous future we’re all watching unfold.

Join the Conversation

If you haven’t watched the full two-part interview yet, grab a drink, settle in, and come along for the rides! These episodes capture personal stories, community, factory insights, and the simple joy of a car that just handles it.

Drop a comment below and let me know:

  • What stood out most to you from the conversation with @TechOperator?
  • Have you taken a FSD ride in a Tesla Model Y yet?
  • What are you most looking forward to with Cybercab and the next chapter of autonomy?

I read every comment — this community makes the journey so much richer.

Stay curious, stay adventurous, and keep enjoying the ride ahead! 🚕✨

Previous episode: Episode 169 – My Second Unsupervised Model Y Robotaxi Ride

Gail’s Tesla Podcast Episode 169: My Second Unsupervised Model Y Robotaxi Ride Through Austin – Real-Time Thoughts on This Wild Piece of History

Gail Alfar1 Comment

April 24, 2026

Episode 169 of Gail’s Tesla Podcast is live, and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you!

This time I climbed back into a Tesla Model Y running in full unsupervised Robotaxi mode for my second journey through Austin streets. Camera rolling the whole way, I captured my genuine, moment-by-moment reactions as the car took care of everything on its own. Downtown Austin energy, a stop at Starbucks on Riverside Drive, smooth navigation through real traffic — it felt like another chapter of living history. And the vibe? Straight-up gold Tesla energy all the way.

Watch the full ride and my unfiltered real-time commentary here:

In the episode you’ll hear me chatting away as the car handles downtown streets, eases through traffic, and elegantly solves a specific maneuvering situation near the coffee shop. One feeling kept coming up for me: “I just feel really safe and relaxed.” No stress, no hovering over imaginary pedals, only the simple pleasure of being a passenger in a vehicle that clearly understands its world.

What This Ride Revealed About the Technology We’re Actually Living With

There’s a special kind of wonder that comes from experiencing autonomy not in a polished demo video, but on the exact streets you drive every day. What made this second ride feel so capable, so natural, didn’t happen by accident. Several deep, compounding strengths showed up in quiet but powerful ways.

The car perceives everything through its cameras alone. No bulky extra sensors, no spinning LiDAR on the roof, no radar arrays like Waymo, just a clean, elegant vehicle reading the visual world the way humans do. That choice creates a system that feels integrated rather than bolted-on, and it performed beautifully in the mixed lighting, tree cover, and urban clutter of Austin.

That visual intelligence is trained on something no one else has at anywhere near this scale: billions of miles of real driving data collected from Teslas all over the world. The situations I saw today — busy intersections, pedestrians, cyclists, tight spots — aren’t rare edge cases in a simulator. They’re variations the AI has already studied thousands of times in similar real-world conditions. You can feel that collective experience in how confidently and proactively it drives.

Equally important is how it makes decisions. The autonomy stack uses end-to-end neural networks that map raw camera input straight to smooth vehicle controls. There’s no layer of brittle if-then rules trying to anticipate every possibility. The result is driving that feels holistic and context-aware — exactly what you want when the car has to resolve a real parking or departure challenge on the fly, the way it did for me near Riverside Drive.

None of this capability appears without serious computational horsepower dedicated to training on massive video datasets. Purpose-built infrastructure for processing driving data at enormous scale has made it possible to turn raw fleet experience into rapidly improving intelligence. Every unsupervised mile contributes to the next leap forward.

It also matters that this intelligence lives inside a vehicle platform that was designed for deep, continuous integration. The Model Y has evolved alongside the autonomy software through years of over-the-air updates. That tight coupling between hardware and software — refined on the road, not just in the lab — is what lets the car feel responsive and reliable instead of hesitant or overcautious.

What stands out most is the clear destination the work has been pointed toward all along: genuine unsupervised operation on ordinary public roads. Not perpetual supervision, not limited geofenced zones, but the confidence to let the vehicle handle complex, dynamic city driving without a safety driver present. Feeling that trust validated in practice — relaxed in the passenger seat while the car just… handles it — turns “someday” into something you can experience today.

And because the system keeps learning, the car I rode in yesterday is already smarter than the one from last month. Fleet-wide updates roll out regularly, folding lessons from rides just like this one into every vehicle. It’s a living technology that gets better with use rather than one that ships and then slowly ages.

As I finished this ride, that forward-looking excitement was everywhere — the same gold Cybercab energy that has me genuinely counting down to purpose-built robotaxi vehicles designed from the ground up for joyful, efficient, autonomous mobility. The unsupervised rides we’re taking right now in current models are the essential bridge to that next chapter.

These in-car episodes aren’t just tech demos for me. They’re a way of documenting a transformation I get to live inside my own city and sharing the real wonder (and occasional delighted “wait… it just did that?!” moments) with all of you who are following along.

If you haven’t watched yet, pour yourself something nice and take the ride with me. Then come back and tell me in the comments:

  • What stood out most to you in this episode?
  • Did any particular moment make the progress feel especially real?
  • Have you tried an unsupervised Robotaxi ride yourself, or are you as excited as I am about where this is all heading?

I read every single comment and I’m grateful for this community. The journey is so much richer when we share it.

Stay curious. Stay adventurous. And keep watching the road ahead — it’s getting more interesting every single week. 🚕✨

Tags: #Tesla #FSD #Robotaxi #UnsupervisedDriving #GailsTeslaPodcast #AustinTexas #AutonomousVehicles #Cybercab

Previous episode: Episode 168 – Elon Musk Reposts Viral Robotaxi Narrow Street U-Turn

Research Fab Austin Groundbreaking

Tesla Q1 2026 Earnings Call: Elon Musk’s Vision for the AI & Robotics Future (April 22, 2026)

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

Date: April 22, 2026

Format: Audio-only webcast (Q&A via Say Technologies platform)

Focus: Strategic outlook on AI, autonomy, Optimus, Robotaxi, and massive future investments (financial details covered separately in Tesla’s Q1 Update deck).

Tesla held its Q1 2026 Financial Results and Q&A webcast on April 22, 2026. As always, the call provided invaluable direct insight into the company’s direction straight from CEO Elon Musk, alongside other executives. These moments are especially precious—capturing Elon’s unfiltered thinking on the ambitious projects that define Tesla’s next chapter.

Participants

  • Travis Axelrod, Head of Investor Relations (moderator)
  • Elon Musk, Co-Founder & CEO
  • Vaibhav Taneja, CFO
  • A number of other Tesla executives (specific names beyond the above not individually detailed in the public audio/webcast notes)

The session began with opening remarks from Elon, followed by brief comments from Vaibhav, then moved into Q&A drawn from retail investor submissions (via Say) and the queue.

High-Level Summary of Elon’s Key Themes

Elon described 2026 as “a very exciting year” defined by substantially higher capital expenditures to fuel growth in AI, manufacturing, vehicles, and especially robotics. He reiterated his long-held conviction that Optimus will be Tesla’s (and the world’s) biggest product ever.

Key emphases included:

  • Heavy investment in core tech (battery, powertrain, AI software/training, chip design) and supply chain strengthening.
  • Cautious, safety-first expansion of unsupervised Full Self-Driving and Robotaxi operations (zero incidents/injuries to date).
  • The classic “stretched-out S-curve” reality for new production ramps (Cybercab, Semi, Optimus).
  • Major AI hardware progress (AI5 taped out, AI6 and Dojo 3 already in discussion).
  • Optimus production starting slowly in Fremont later this year (repurposing lines after S/X), with meaningful ramp in 2027; V3 design nearly ready for demonstration.

He stressed that all Tesla vehicles remain autonomy-ready and incredible value, while energy storage demand (Megapack) remains very strong.

Verbatim: Elon Musk’s Opening Remarks

“Thank you. I think we’ve got a very exciting year ahead of us with 2026. We’re going to be substantially increasing our investments in the future, so you should expect to see a very significant increase in capital expenditures. I think it’s well justified for a substantially increased future revenue stream. Obviously, Tesla is not alone in this. I think you’ve seen in most, if not all, certainly the major technology companies substantially increasing their capital investments. We’re going to be doing the same. I think it’s going to pay off in a very big way.

We’re investing in and improving our core technologies, battery powertrain, AI software, AI training, chip design, laying the groundwork for significantly increased manufacturing production. We are also strengthening our supply chain across the board, batteries, energy, AI, silicon, everything.

Laying the groundwork, like I said, for what we expect to be a significant increase in vehicle production in the future. Of course, a very significant increase. Well, actually releasing Optimus, but increasing our internal production for testing, and then probably being able to have Optimus be useful outside of Tesla sometime next year. As you’ve heard me say a few times, I think Optimus will be our biggest product, not just Tesla’s biggest product ever, but probably the biggest product ever. I remain convinced of that conclusion.

On our vehicle side, it’s always, I think, worth noting that a Tesla car is incredible value for money, and they’re all autonomy-ready, depending on what part of the world you’re in. The supervised Full Self-Driving is getting extremely good. We have just started production of Cybercab, and we’ll begin production of our Tesla Semi soon.

Now, I should say, whenever you have a new product with a completely new supply chain, new everything, it’s always a stretched-out S curve, so you should expect that initial production of Cybercab and Semi will be very slow, but then ramping up, and going exponential towards the end of the year and certainly next year. In fact, we’ll be ramping up production of all vehicles, in all factories, to the best of our ability through the balance of this year.

On the energy front, the United States and the whole world will need a lot of energy storage to meet growing electricity demand. Demand for our Megapack is very strong. We’re excited to begin production of Megapack 3 later this year in our new world-class factory outside Houston.

For Full Self-Driving and Robotaxi, version 14.3 was a major architectural update, and we have a whole pipeline of major improvements to Full Self-Driving that we believe will lead to unsupervised Full Self-Driving being available anywhere in the world that it is legal to do so. Then there’s a version 15, hopefully by the end of this year, but certainly by early next year. That will be a complete overhaul of the software architecture, and will run on AI5. At that point, we’re really just increasing the safety level of FSD above human safety level even more, meaning I think even within version 14, we’re significantly safer than human, but V15 will take that to another level. We’ve expanded Robotaxi to Dallas and Houston, using the same software source in the Bay Area.

The limiting factor for expansion is really rigorous validation, making sure things are completely safe. We don’t want to have a single accidental injury with the expansion of Robotaxi, and we have, to the credit of the team, not had a single one to date.

Optimus, we’re preparing Fremont for start of production later this year with Optimus. Again, totally new supply chain, totally new technology, so therefore, the production S curve is always very slow in the beginning. We’ll ramp up to significant numbers next year, and we’re constructing a second Optimus factory at our Giga Texas location, and that will probably start production around summer next year. The V3 Optimus design is almost ready to demonstrate. I think we want to just make sure it’s polished. Like it works functionally, but there’s some aesthetic elements that need to be finalized, and I think probably middle of this year, we should be able to show it off. We’re also a little hesitant to show V3 off because we find our competitors do a frame-by-frame analysis whenever we release something and copy everything they possibly can. I think there’s some value to not showing new technology until it’s close to production.

Congratulations again to the Tesla AI chip team for taping out AI5. That’s going to be a great chip. I think probably the best AI inference chip for edge compute that exists. Certainly, I think unequivocally the best value for money. Team did a great job, and we already have a lot of momentum for designing AI6, and we’ve begun to discuss ideas for Dojo 3. This is all very exciting.

We’ve also finalized plans for the research chip fab on the Giga Texas campus, and we’ll start construction of that this year.

In conclusion, Tesla is working on a lot of large, ambitious projects. They’re all very challenging, but I think they’re going to be revolutionary. This is what the team does best, solve the hardest problems and build amazing products. I’d like to thank the Tesla team for all their hard work and thank you to all of our supporters.”

Selected Verbatim Highlights from Elon’s Q&A Responses

Elon fielded questions on production realities, timelines, safety, and AI architecture. Here are key excerpts (lightly contextualized for flow):

On Optimus V3 reveal, production start (Fremont S/X line transition), and ramp challenges: “Well, as I was saying, what we’ve found is that when we’ve unveiled various Optimus versions, we’ve found out our competitors literally do a frame-by-frame analysis and copy everything we’re doing. I think we want to push the Optimus 3 unveil maybe closer to production. Start of production is, we’re assuming, somewhere around the late July, August timeframe. … Frankly, if we’re able to go from stopping production on one line, dismantling that entire line, reinstalling a whole new line, and turning that on in a matter of 4 months, that is an insanely fast speed. I don’t think any other company on Earth has ever done that before… It is impossible to predict these things. When you have a brand-new product and an entirely new production line, and you have 10,000 unique items, all of which have to go right to ramp production, it’ll move as fast as the least lucky, slowest, dumbest part in the entire 10,000… Initial skills will be, obviously, we’re going to start with simple skills in the factory and then build up from there.”

On unsupervised FSD/Robotaxi expansion and safety: “Well, we certainly hope to have unsupervised FSD or Robotaxi operating in, I don’t know, a dozen or so states by the end of this year. Initially, we’re taking a very cautious approach… [we haven’t had any injuries and certainly no fatalities to date with the unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi expansion, and we want to keep it that way].”

On Optimus AI architecture (local intelligence + orchestration): “Well, we think we can put a lot of intelligence locally in the robot and it certainly needs to be enough intelligence that if the robot gets disconnected, like if it’s a bad cellular signal or there isn’t Wi-Fi, you know, Optimus can’t just get stuck. It needs to have enough local intelligence that it can still do useful things, even if it loses the connection, kind of like the car. The car does not need any cellular or Wi-Fi connection to be able to drive safely. Now, I guess you can think of like Optimus needs kind of a manager to tell it what to do, broadly speaking… so you know i think you need kind of a an orchestration ai which uh you know grok would be good for orchestration um and and then for you know for optimist’s voice you know having um a low latency intelligent voice ai grok is actually very good for that… But I would expect the amount of interaction apart from like the voice stuff and asking complicated questions of the robot that necessarily needs a large AI model to answer the Gronk would probably have about as much interaction with Optimus as a manager would have with the people on their team.”

(Additional topics included HW3 upgrade paths for unsupervised capability, broader AI chip progress, and the new research chip fab at Giga Texas.)

Closing Thoughts

The call reinforced Tesla’s pivot toward AI, autonomy, and humanoid robotics as the dominant long-term drivers, with near-term production ramps following realistic S-curve timelines and an unwavering focus on safety and execution. Elon’s direct words continue to provide the clearest window into that vision.

For the extremely detailed full transcript (including all speakers, operator notes, and every Q&A), check these reliable sources:

View of Giga Texas factory floor from the conference room where the Getting Stoned podcast interview with Elon Musk took place, July 2022 [Photo by Gail Alfar]

Elon Musk Full Transcript: “This is Getting Stoned” Podcast at Giga Texas (July 2022)

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Video: https://youtu.be/rQI2Ls32b80

In July 2022, podcaster Johnna Crider invited me, Gail Alfar, to join her for a relaxed, wide-ranging conversation with Elon Musk at Tesla’s Giga Texas factory. The chat was recorded for Johnna’s show Getting Stoned.

The three of us talked about some of the biggest ideas facing humanity: why we should make life multi-planetary with real urgency, the declining birth rate and its risks to civilization, poverty and homelessness, the power of internet access and education, Starlink’s role in disaster relief, Tesla Energy (including Megapacks), and the future of AI and Full Self-Driving.

It was a candid, unscripted discussion full of big-picture thinking and personal stories — including a memorable moment when Elon directly addressed the shadowbanning I was experiencing on Twitter (now X).

This cleaned-up transcript captures the full conversation exactly as it happened — easy to read and understand for anyone, no matter their background. (Elon even invited Johnna back for a Part 2 because we didn’t have time to cover every question!)

Full Verbatim Transcript

Elon: This is Getting Stoned. It’s a podcast about gems and minerals and I am not your host.

Johnna: This is Getting Stoned. It’s a podcast about gems and minerals and I am your host, Johnna Crider. On today’s episode we have a very special guest. Thank you, Elon Musk, for joining me.

Elon: All right.

Johnna: So Elon, I always find it inspiring when you talk about the light of consciousness. What does consciousness mean to you?

Elon: To the best of our knowledge, the only conscious life we’re aware of is on Earth. I’m conscious in the sense that I think I have self-awareness. We’ve never found microbial life anywhere else in the solar system, though it’s possible we might find some under the ice of Europa.

According to the geological record, Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. It’s odd that only very recently has life evolved that can talk, write, and communicate sophisticated ideas. And only now has civilization reached the point where we can send life to another planet. A lot of people think Moon landings are fake. They’re not.

Johnna: I don’t think they’re fake.Yeah, they’ve actually brought back some cool minerals from the Moon and I kind of have one in my collection. 

Elon: I actually have a slice of a Moon meteor — a chunk of Moon that was hit by a meteor, smashed a bunch of Moon rocks, and some of the Moon rocks landed on Earth. And I’ve got a segment of one of them.

Johnna Crider: The Apollo mission brought back some Tranquilityite. And up until 2011, it’s called that because of the Sea of Tranquility. Yeah, and there was none found on Earth and then in 2011 some deposits were found in Australia. 

So I have a friend of mine sent me some deposits and it broke. And so it had big chunks and two little pieces, so I made the other two little pieces into art. 

Elon: But I mean it’s crazy how old the rock is. It’s like billions of years old. 

Johnna: That shungite I just gave you, that’s over two billion years old. 

Elon: That’s a long time, you know. Don’t hold your breath (laughter)

Elon: I mean it’s hard to even wrap your mind around that kind of time scale. A billion years — our lifespans are a flash in the pan. That’s true. Just like that. Shorter than a flash in the pan compared to galactic time scales.

So there are much things that one could say, or at least appear to be likely, which is that it appears that consciousness is rare. And it takes a long time for it to arise. And so, like I said, to the best of our knowledge we are alone. And so we have to accept the possibility that we may be it — at least in this sector of the galaxy or in the Milky Way perhaps. And if we’re it and this is the only little candle in a vast darkness of a little light of consciousness that got us lit, then we should really try to make sure that life does not go out. And we can’t take it for granted that it won’t. So we want to try to make it last as long as possible.

Elon: And I think we also want to try to understand the nature of the universe, meaning of life, where is it going, what does the future hold, just find out what’s going on in the universe. And so that means the more that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, the more we’re likely to understand the fundamental questions around the meaning of life and nature of the universe. And so I think that’s a good goal to have. And it’s a goal that I think can unite humanity because it’s a common goal as opposed to sort of infighting and “I want this big field of ice, I want this piece of land.” No, I want this piece of land. Well, you know, there’s a lot of land out there. There’s a lot of planets with nothing on them. How about those ones? Why fight over the little pieces when there’s entire planets out there and solar systems and stuff?

Elon: So I think it is a philosophy that withstands reason. I think there’s a solid reasoning basis for it. It’s really just a philosophy of curiosity, I would call it. And it’s also exciting, you know. If you think like… I mean the happy reasons when you wake up in the morning that you’re excited to be alive and you look forward to the future. And it can’t just be solving one sad problem after another. You know, what the hell’s the point? There’s no point like that.

Johnna: Right.

Elon: This is the first time in history that the window of opportunity has been open for life to become multi-planetary. It may stay open for a long time or a short time, but I think it would be wise to assume it will be open for a short time and take action now.

We don’t need to spend a huge amount of resources on it. Less than one percent of our resources would be enough to make life multi-planetary. We should be life’s steward in that sense, because the other creatures can’t build spaceships but we can.

This isn’t about abandoning Earth. We need to make Earth as good as possible. That’s what Tesla is about, making a good future for Earth. SpaceX is about making life multi-planetary. We need to do both.

Johnna: You would not believe what my cats can do. That’s all I’ve got to say about that! But seriously, I think we have a responsibility to protect the rest of the creatures on Earth too.

Elon: I completely agree. A reasonable approach would be to spend about one percent of our resources on making life multi-planetary and ensuring the long-term survival of consciousness and life as we know it. Tesla’s goal is to help ensure a good future for Earth. SpaceX’s goal is to make life multi-planetary and ensure the long-term survival of consciousness. Those are awesome goals.

Gail: Happiness.

Elon: I’ve mostly talked about the defensive, protective reasons for becoming multi-planetary. But what actually gets me most excited is the sense of adventure and possibility. It would be the greatest adventure ever, exciting and inspiring to see it happen.

Johnna: What you and SpaceX have done in Ukraine with Starlink inspires a lot of deep respect. You also helped Saint Charles Parish in my state after Hurricane Ida, as well as the villages of Tango. What role do you see Starlink playing in disaster relief? We’re going to have a lot of disasters. They’re predicting more hurricanes in my area this year.

Elon: In general, Starlink is not dependent on any ground-based infrastructure, so it can provide internet connectivity to areas hit by floods, fires, or earthquakes where the ground infrastructure has been destroyed. That’s extremely helpful for rescue operations. When people are stranded, they need to be able to say “I need help” or “I need rescue.” Starlink has provided that in a number of situations.

Johnna: When we had Ida, my power was out for a week. Communications in southeast Louisiana were completely wiped out. It just made me think Starlink would definitely help organizations like the Cajun Navy as well as others to communicate better, especially with government.

Elon: Yeah.

Johnna: The Musk Foundation has done a lot of good work. About a month ago I made this really long list of everything you guys are doing. What you did for Lake Charles after Hurricane Laura was phenomenal and saved lives. How do you see the Musk Foundation helping charities, especially toward disaster relief, in the next few years as the effects of climate change continue?

Elon: We try hard with the foundation to give away money in ways that are actually useful. Maximum number of cents on the dollar actually helping people in need. It’s way harder to give away money than you think if you care about it actually doing good. We’re scaling up more personnel in the foundation to go through fewer intermediaries so we can have the shortest path to helping people.

Johnna: Would you consider grants that help organizations that focus on disaster relief?

Elon: Yeah, we do provide grants to organizations that work on disaster relief.

Johnna: Last year you donated 100 million dollars for the XPRIZE competition to fight climate change. Which of the four categories, air, land, ocean, or rocks, do you feel needs the most work?

Elon: The larger problem is getting the parts-per-million level of CO2 in the atmosphere down. We’re going to have to pull it out of the air and store it somewhere. I think storing it in a solid form makes sense. The energy to do that has to come from renewables, solar, wind, geothermal. I’m actually pro-nuclear as well, except in locations prone to natural disasters.

Johnna: There’s a company called Project Vesta that uses peridot to do that, and some diamond companies are making lab-grown diamonds with carbon from the air.

Elon: I don’t think that scales very well, but it is cool to think about.

Johnna: Would you consider doing another XPRIZE when this one closes?

Elon: Yeah, absolutely. We’re constantly looking for highly effective ways to spend money for general social good.

Johnna: What accomplishments of the Musk Foundation are you most proud of?

Elon: We funded a literacy XPRIZE to figure out the best software on a low-cost tablet to teach people to read. If you can improve literacy, you improve everything about a society. That’s probably the best thing we’ve done so far.

Johnna: The declining birth rate. You often talk about this problem. It is a real problem. But there’s another problem I think plays a major role, and that’s poverty. What actions do you think need to be taken toward solving poverty that would help relieve some of that issue with the declining birth rate?

Elon: The declining birth rate is somewhat counter-intuitive, but generally the wealthier someone is, the fewer kids they have. I’m an exception, but it’s quite rare. It’s not really a money thing. In fact, it seems to be the opposite.

Even someone living at what we consider the poverty level in 2022 has access to things the richest person on Earth didn’t have 100 years ago.

Johnna: I’ve been homeless before while working two jobs. The idea of having a kid in that situation would terrify me. You can’t just throw money at it and solve it. There’s a lot of trauma involved. From my own experience, trauma is the number one cause of homelessness. That’s why I was asking what ideas you have that could point toward a real solution.

Elon: Literacy and access to the internet are fundamentally helpful. We have to think beyond just the United States. There are billions of people who have no internet access at all, or it’s very low bandwidth and insanely expensive.

These days you can learn almost anything online. MIT has all their lectures available, and many other universities do the same. You can literally have access to all the world’s information using just a simple phone or an old tablet.

Elon: This fact is really underappreciated. Before the internet, if you wanted to learn a skill you had to go to a specific school, get the exact books, or visit a library that might not even have what you needed. A few hundred years ago books were rare and expensive. The improvement in access to information is truly remarkable.

Johnna: I can’t imagine not having books! Google teaches really well, especially when I go to gem and mineral shows and have to look things up. Do you have any other thoughts on how to reverse population decline?

Elon: The population decline problem is possibly the biggest risk to civilization. A lot of people still think there are too many humans on the planet. That is absolutely not true. We could double the world’s population without any meaningful damage to the environment.

You could fit every single human on Earth inside the city of New York on just one floor. Earth is actually very sparsely populated with humans. There are not enough humans, far from being too many. Last year we had the lowest birth rate in recorded history.

Gail: Wow, yeah. I saw the statistics on your Twitter account.

Johnna: Yeah, so I don’t even see all your tweets half the time, even though I follow you. That’s the crazy part.

Elon: If you have the latest tweets? Because you have to switch because of the algorithm?

Johnna: I do switch.

Gail: I’m totally deboosted on Twitter. I’m everything bad. Search ghostban.

Elon: Are you serious?

Johnna: Yeah, shadow banning is crazy. It’s really bad.

Elon: What the heck’s going on?

Gail: I don’t know. I tweet really nice things but…

Elon: Exactly. You’re not like a hate monger. You’re the furthest thing from it. You’re obviously a super nice person. So what the heck are they doing?

Johnna: She got shadowbanned when she replied to me with a heart. It was you or Kristen. They replied with something really nice and got shadowbanned.

Johnna: Oh, it was you.

Gail: Lots of lots of love.

Johnna: Yeah.

Elon: It really sounds like someone on Twitter is doing something shady. That’s not cool.

Elon: Whoever’s doing that on Twitter, shame on you!

Johnna: Right, y’all need to stop! (laughter)

Elon: That’s not cool.

Johnna: Yeah, don’t shadowban Gail. She’s awesome.

Elon: Yeah, that’s so totally messed up.

Johnna: Alright, so let’s talk Tesla. There’ve been quite a lot of bills that have been kind of anti-EV or anti-Tesla going through state governments. What are your thoughts on how dealerships are trying to preserve their way of life instead of evolving with the market?

Elon: It’s to be expected that incumbents will oppose a new entrant. If they can’t win a fair fight, they’ll try an unfair fight. But if we have the people on our side and strong customer support, I think we’ll win most of the battles.

Johnna: Tesla Insurance is making a difference for customers who switch, and Louisiana has the highest average cost of car insurance in the nation. When will Tesla Insurance expand to all 50 states and Canada? And when will Louisiana get it?

Elon: Insurance is regulated primarily at the state level, so it’s a state-by-state thing. You have to jump through a lot of hoops in every state, and those hoops take a long time.

Johnna: …and the weakest part of Texas is the grid, and here comes Tesla trying to strengthen that weakest part.

Elon: The batteries are helpful even without sustainable energy because they can load-balance the grid. Power spikes, dips, fluctuations. The batteries can smooth it all out. The Tesla Megapack and Powerwalls can be really helpful for stabilizing the grid.

Gail: Could you talk a little bit about Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and if Gigafactory Texas could be protected in the event of an emergency?

Elon: In terms of batteries, this is going to be a combination of large utility-scale batteries with very big installations like the one we did with PG&E at Moss Landing, and then at the local level the Powerwalls that collectively can stabilize the grid within a neighborhood. The combination of centralized Megapacks and distributed Powerwalls can have a very positive effect in making sure the power stays on.

Johnna: …and then we also touched upon AI.

Elon: On the AI front, Tesla is doing a lot with AI for Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. We’re making good progress. The goal is to make the car safer than a human driver, and in many situations it’s already safer. There have been cases where the car saved someone’s life because the driver had a seizure or was unconscious and the car pulled over safely.

Autonomy is going to be a huge benefit to society because over a million people die every year in car accidents. I think we can reduce that by at least a factor of 10.

On the broader AI front, we’re working toward artificial general intelligence. AGI. It’s not there yet, but progress is being made. Eventually digital intelligence could exceed human intelligence, and I think we need to be careful because AI could be an existential risk if not handled properly. So some regulatory oversight as a public safety measure makes sense.

But overall, I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to have AI that is beneficial to humanity. Optimus, the humanoid robot, is also powered by the same AI tech. So that’s another big thing.

Johnna: Wow. Well, thank you so much, Elon, for taking the time to talk with me today. I really appreciate it. And thank you to everyone at Giga Texas for making this possible. You’ve inspired so many people. Thank you.

Elon: All right. Thank you.

Johnna: And Elon did invite me to come back since I didn’t get to ask all my questions, so there will eventually be a Part 2. Thank you again.

View of Giga Texas factory floor from the conference room where the Getting Stoned podcast interview with Elon Musk took place, July 2022 [Photo by Gail Alfar]
Gigafactory Texas as seen from the interview conference room. [Credit: Gail Alfar, All Rights Reserved, June 25, 2022]